


the sky is not the sky

by Anonymous



Category: Rusty Quill RPF
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person, POV Tim, Sibling Incest, and just all around a weird time, but i promise youll like it, let me know if i should tag something else!, subtle horror fantasy vibes, weird shit au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26585719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: the sky is not the sky when you wake up.your eyelids shoot open with an urgency that the rest of your body does not share and so the first thing you see is the dark canopy of soil above your head. this, of course, does not make sense.
Relationships: Ben Meredith/Tim Meredith
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5
Collections: Anonymous





	the sky is not the sky

**Author's Note:**

> do not send to anyone in cast/crew! if cast/crew arrives here on their own then u know what the tags say, welcome, we have fun here
> 
> thank you to the crime boys for letting me yell this fic at them in a fever like state for 2 hours last night. it was honestly amazing and im really proud with the work that came of it. 
> 
> comments and kudos are always appreciated! <3

the sky is not the sky when you wake up.

your eyelids shoot open with an urgency that the rest of your body does not share and so the first thing you see is the dark canopy of soil above your head. this, of course, does not make sense. in an effort to make it make sense you pull yourself, sluggish and squirming, to a seated position. the earth is crumbly and dry beneath you and you shake it from your hair. the solidness of a massive tree stands firm against your side- but something is wrong. many things are wrong, you think, as the sky continues to not be the sky, as the tree at your side reveals itself to be a root, thick and stretching down impossibly far from what lies above. you should not be here, you think, and then you think that really no one should when you hear the crunching of dirt from just behind you.

you tense and try to spin but your limbs still refuse to cooperate, end up slumped on the ground, chin half tucked into your chest and eyes pointed off to the side. you trust your neck more than your legs so you twist it once again towards the noise that follows your fall, another hurried set of crunching steps that peter off as you stare up into the eyes of your brother. "ben?" you slur, tongue leaden and thick in your mouth, and he does not stop looking afraid.

"ben," and you close your eyes and move like a child learning to walk: with a level of concentration beyond what a motion as simple as this should require. with that you find firm ground with legs crossed and watch as he breathes, dirt-streaked and panicked, in your general direction. he takes another step back but you know from his eyes that he _knows_ you. "what- what's going on," you manage, simple speech now a herculean task, and he blinks twice in rapid succession. 

his arms are tensed into fists by his sides as his body trembles in fear and anticipation. he wears a simple white collared shirt and black trousers that you do not remember him owning, but they are both tattered and streaked with mud and grime. his shoes are equally ragged, ancient mismatched leather, and as you observe these incongruencies you note too the undercurrent of Wrong in the air between you.

you cough as the dirt in the air encroaches into your throat, your lungs. it is a harried, ragged thing, thick and pained, and you imagine you can hear your brother swallow his mouthful of fear and spit. before you finish, you hear him whisper: "you shouldn't be here."

you are almost certain of it, at least, and when you finish coughing you are determined to climb to your feet, to confront him properly, to _understand_ what this is- because the sky is wrong and you are breathing dirt and the tree is not a tree and there is something Wrong here, something that smells of iron and rust in the air, and you think he's been smelling it for longer than you. the instant you tense your brow with determination he rushes to your side, as if an invisible wall between you came crashing down. with his assistance you struggle to your feet, and as you do you feel him cling to your side with a shaky palm. 

"what do you _mean_ ," you ask, and he holds your head between his grimy palms, streaking earth across your cheeks. 

"you shouldn't _be_ here," he says, sad, choked with tears. "it isn't _right_ here. you- you can't-" 

he stops, overcome, and the pit of your stomach churns, sharp and anxious. "where is here," you ask, and you place your own hands on his arms. you are grounded by him, by the circuit of your bodies, and he is grounded by you in turn, you think. you hope.

"i don't know," he says, and you accept that with a breath. 

"how long have you been here?" you ask, gentler, and he shudders with the whole of him, through the palms pressed tight to your face. 

"i don't know," he says, and you accept that- but not with a breath. with something cold and steely in the pit of you.

___

you have been walking for some time now. if you could call what you have passed a landscape you would have said the landscape is not particularly varied. you suppose it is _all_ a "landscape"- as the world around you seems composed of land and only land, of earth and mud and stone stretching up towards the highest heavens, sculpted by some impossible power. it should be dark but it isn't, but you also could not say that it is bright. it is nothing, nothing at all, and you walk through the nothing in silence. 

it might have been days since he found you, since he stumbled upon your sleeping body, and the two of you have not spoken since. you have remained nearly joined at the hip, holding each other's hands or brushing close to each other's sides or both. he does not look as though he hasn't eaten but you know neither of you have eaten or drank or slept since you awoke, and so this does not bring you any comfort. 

you can't stop looking at him. and he can't stop looking at you.

he does not tremble quite so much as he did when he found you but you catch him staring at you as if he will stare right through. everything is dark and dry and solid here but he expects you to be the only ghost, the only wispy thing, as though in this impossible world somehow _you_ are the lie. and you stare back, sometimes while he watches you and sometimes while he doesn't, looking for your brother in the husk that marches by your side. 

you do find him there, sometimes, in the strength of his arms as he helps you up an incline, in the curve of his spine as he curls up in the few moments the two of you choose to rest, in the slightness of his smile when he sees substance in you. it is all tinged with a melancholy you wish you could say is entirely unlike him but you know the aimless grief that grips him, that has gripped him before. if hell was to wander without purpose then it would be a hell made for ben, and you mourn for the time he spent here alone.

upon what you have chosen to call a horizon you see what you have chosen to call a forest. impossibly long, enormous roots stretch down from the ceiling above, some reaching down so far as to touch the ground while others curl their grasping fingers through the air, never making contact. it is more than you have seen since you have been walking and so you point to it wordlessly, determine it to be a destination. it is better than anything else and ben accepts it, nods, and that is that. 

you make steady progress towards the forest in silence but for the breaths you both share. along the way you cough a few more times, each time worse than the last. you can still smell iron and as you cough and cough and cough you finally taste it on your tongue as blood seeps down the back of your screaming throat. you swallow it in pain and disgust as your brother holds you, wrapped around you like a man lost at sea, clinging to a buoy in the ocean and praying he does not drown. you breathe through the last of the hacking pain and stand. treading water for now, it seems. 

___

at the edge of the forest there is a Thing. you do not know what it is but it _reeks_ of the scent of this place, a scent you know now to be blood and earth. it smells like a fresh corpse and it lifts its head to regard the two of you blankly. it too seems to be made of dirt and something Wrong and you do not understand it as it speaks.

"what do you wish from the forest," it asks, in the voice of two impossibly large rocks grinding against each other, low and crunching

"where are we," ben asks, and his voice is dry and crackling. you look towards him in surprise but he is staring at the creature and so you look back to it, waiting for a response. 

"what do you wish from the forest," it asks again, but it does not sound impatient, or displeased. there is no emotion in its words and the lack of feeling suffocates you. 

"we want answers to our questions," you say, and it looks at you without eyes.

you feel it rifle through your thoughts, feel a sharp sting behind your eyes, feel the air in your ears pop and pressurize and pop again. it is not Right but eventually it seems to be pleased enough with what it finds and you are released, ushered forward, and ben guides you through the trees. it all happens before you find time again and so it is as if you are coming up for air when you are next aware of your surroundings. ben has been guiding you along between the thick root-trees, but when you come back to yourself you stop, tugging at the arm that he has wrapped around your wrist. 

"ben," you say, and he startles at the sound. he does not hesitate, though, and looks to you, body turned to yours like a sunflower to the sun, in devotion. you notice this with a catch in your breath that he does not seem to hear. "are you alright?" he asks, and he would do anything, in that moment, to make sure you were. you are more than his buoy. you are his destination, what is holding him together.

"i- i'm fine," you say, in the face of this. "i just- that... thing seemed to- imply we'd find answers here. so are we... looking for something? or just- walking."

"i dont know," he says, and the sadness lining the words reminds you of the chime of a distant music box. it is small and pure and sings of nostalgia and what has been left behind. "i didn't know what to do, so- i just kept walking."

"that's ok," you say, and you hug him tight to prove it. you hear him sniff in the cradle of your arms and wonder for not the first time and not the last how _long_ he was here without you to guide, to hold, to be held by. "that's fine, ben, but let's- i don't know, let's try... asking."

he sniffs again, nods, steps back but does not let you break contact entirely. a hand remains firmly clasped in yours as he breathes, deep and full, into the diaphragm and out.

" _where are we_!" he shouts, and if there were birds in this place they would have fled at the force of it. there aren't, though, and instead the air merely quivers in response. the silence that follows feels deeper than the silence you had been walking through, the silence the two of you had made, as there is sorrow in loss that there is not when there is nothing left to lose. 

" _come on, answer me! bloody trees! fucking roots! where are we, what is this! take us home!"_ and on "home" his voice breaks, and he squeezes tight onto your wrist. if these trees had leaves they would be shaking. but there are not. there is nothing, and in the nothing you two stand. and wait.

and then, there is something.

_"you are in the earth,"_ it says. _"you are in the below that is not above, that cannot be from above."_

"what does that _mean_ ?" he shouts, full of rage. "thats _nothing_ , that doesn't mean anything!"

some time passes again before a response, and you wonder what is answering, if each and every root and tree in this place must hear an answer before it can reply or if they do not feel the pause, if time is not the same to them. or if it is not the trees at all. another creature like the first, maybe, though this doesn't feel right. this place is, of course, Wrong, and so nothing does. 

_"you are beyond, and the beyond you are in is below,_ _"_ it says.

"how- how do we get home," you ask, and you cannot muster the force to shout the question. the two of you are accustomed now to the pause between your question and its reply and so you stand there, holding hands against the face of these unseen answers.

_"you return, or you do not return,_ _"_ it says, " _and this is up to you, but not to both of you. to one. to the youngest_ _.”_

you feel faint at this, and look to ben in confusion and fear. "i don't know what it means!" you say, rushing to reassure him. "i dont know how to leave!"

" _you stay, or you leave_ ," it says, " _you let go, or you cling. you struggle. the eldest- his fate is up to you. cling and squirm and struggle and break the surface like worms- or die in the earth like maggots. let go and rest beneath our roots, and he will breathe the air once more_."

"i..." you say, and look to ben. he looks horrified, and his look of horror increases as you try to pull your hand away from his.

"what are you _doing_?" he demands, furious and broken.

"you heard what it said! if i- if i let go you can leave!"

"and what, you die here? alone? i don't think so."

"you heard what it said," you say, firm, more confident than anything else you have said. "it isn't up to you. it's up to me."

he looks- angry, and heartbroken, and he is crying as he speaks. "that- that isn't _fair,_ " and his voice breaks on the final word.

" _rest_ ," it says, and it is louder than it was before, closer. _"rest, rest, and all will be answered. rest and set him free. he has guided you so loyally through this domain, now you may guide him. let go, and watch him fly_.”

you look towards the voice, and when you look back at ben you are both crying. "i'm sorry," you say, and yank as hard as you can at the hand still clutched to yours. 

his strength is greater than yours, and he keeps his grip, the two of you stumbling to the ground. he falls atop you, head inches from your own, before he says, "no, i am. tim, i'm so sorry."

and then he kisses you.

he tastes like dirt and rust and iron, like the air smells, like both of you must reek of by now. he tastes of all of that and somehow he still tastes like- ben, a taste you didn't think you'd ever know, a taste you didn't even consider knowing. the force of it tells you that he has considered it, and if you had enough of your mind left in this moment you might wonder why you hadn't, because this is-

this is-

the kiss ends, as abruptly as it started, and ben pulls away from you with a gasp. he keeps your hand in his firmly clasped, as if scared that after _that_ you could somehow muster enough of your thoughts to pull away. you cannot seem to move at _all_ , let alone pull with all your strength. you blink up at him a bit dumbly and wait for something to happen.

"... say something," he whispers. "please, tim, say something."

"... right then," you say, and he waits for more. when that is all that comes he actually laughs, a quick, joyful thing, and asks, "is that _all_?"

"is that a- is that _all_ ?" you say, playfully aghast. "well what _else_ am i meant to say _benjamin_ ? what a bloody lovely kiss, thank you ben, definitely going through the process of realizing some things, too bad i have to _die in dirt hell_."

he laughs again, light and free. "realizing things, hmm?" he says, and does not give you a chance to respond before he kisses you again. you were expecting it perhaps slightly more than the first but not enough to know what to do with yourself, so instead you focus on allowing yourself to enjoy it. if you're going to die anyway it seems only fair that you can take advantage of your older brother's _fucking unconscionably good kissing skills_ beforehand. 

he pulls away again, rests his head on your chest. the world feels lighter, brighter where he touches you. "i'm not letting go," he says, and in that instant you know there is nothing you can do to make him. 

so instead you just sigh, because really you should have figured. "guess we do the 'squirming like worms' thing together then, eh?" you ask, and light up as he grins. 

he pulls the two of you back up to standing, brushes the dirt from his chest with his free hand. "we're not letting go," he says, and the world shudders at his words.

" _then you are doomed_ ," it says, but you don't believe it, not anymore. not after that. if you die now you die happy, because really, jesus. _jesus_. 

"nah, mate, pretty sure we're not," you say, and the world shudders again at the strength of your certainty. ben squeezes your hand one final time, and the two of you turn from the voice, and march further into the forest, the world shuddering and the voice growling behind you.

__

the sky is not the sky when you wake up,

but you claw at the earth above you with quick and frantic fingers, claw your way out from the earthen hole. you turn to your side and finish scooping the soil off of ben's heaving form, watch as he emerges into the light, breathing. alive. 

he sees you, and you smile, and you stop his breath, for just a moment, with another kiss.


End file.
